Over and Over
by Dee Moyza
Summary: For nearly twenty years, the owner of the Winhill flower shop has held onto a hope she couldn't really believe. But after seeing a loved one in the eyes of a stranger and sharing her story with a friend, that hope no longer seems so far-fetched. Post-game, one-shot.


_(Disclaimer: As a work of fanfiction, the creation of this piece does not imply ownership of the Final Fantasy franchise, its characters, or any affiliated intellectual property.)_

* * *

 _Flowers bloom over and over. I wonder if people do the same?_ The thought had been in Moira's head for nearly twenty years, since the night Raine passed away. She'd never verbalized it though, for fear of sounding silly. It was, in a way, her own personal comfort, the set of stitches that kept her heart from breaking in two.

Why, then, did she say it to that young man that passed through town a few months ago?

He had surprised her. He had wandered in quietly, with two of his friends, searching for something useless and inconsequential – a broken vase, was it? how odd – and looking at the flowers. She'd told him about the white ones, the ones Raine loved so much, the ones that grew so beautifully beneath her touch.

And then he'd turned around.

For a flickering instant, her heart soared, and the past fell away, taking the sadness with it, and all was right with the world again.

Those were Raine's eyes.

But as she registered that those eyes did not belong to the gentle woman she loved, but instead to a strange and serious boy, hope foundered in her chest. She gazed at the floor and told him that Raine was no longer with them, as much to inform him as to convince herself.

She did not expect him to approach her. When he did, she glanced up at him, took one last look at the eyes that seemed so familiar, and said it:

"Flowers bloom over and over. I wonder if people do the same?"

The boy responded only by way of a slight shrug, then led his friends out of her shop.

She was still sitting there, staring at the floor, hands trembling, when Ilenda dropped by for a visit. Ilenda asked Moira what was wrong, but Moira declined to say. Ilenda excused herself and returned shortly with a calming tea; as an herbalist, Ilenda seemed to have a tea for every occasion, every mood.

But there was no tea to fix the stitch in Moira's heart that had been picked open.

This morning, she'd decided she'd borne the pain long enough, and when Ilenda arrived, Moira told her what had happened months ago, about the boy with Raine's eyes.

"Perhaps I am losing my mind in my old age," Moira said.

"Not at all," Ilenda replied. "I've had … odd experiences, myself."

"Such as?"

"Well, sometimes, I feel as if somebody's watching me. Not in an uncomfortable way, but like when your friend or your loved one walks into the room without saying anything, and waits for you to turn around. When I do, no one's there."

"I'm sure everyone feels that now and again."

"I've also smelled the flowers. Her flowers." Moira looked up and Ilenda smiled sadly. "They have no medicinal properties, so I don't have any inside my shop. Still, I'll be bundling up herbs, or cooking medicine, and their fragrance just wafts in, envelops me. It feels like a hug."

"There must be some explanation."

"There is. It's Raine. It's her spirit."

"You sound so sure," Moira said. "But if you cannot see it, is it really there?"

Ilenda tapped at her glasses. "Our eyes are not particularly strong," she said. "They are the last things I would trust to prove that what I feel is real."

Moira was silent.

"I'm not the only one who's sensed her," Ilenda continued. "Mireille has, too."

"The artist who bought the pub?" Moira scoffed. "How could she? She never even knew Raine."

"Then that's all the more reason to believe her. Mireille says she feels a presence whenever she comes downstairs, and that the fragrance of the flowers in the pub lasts far longer than it should, and sometimes is so strong that it perfumes the entire upstairs apartment."

"Hogwash. Artists are so melodramatic. She probably heard you talking about your experiences and didn't want to feel upstaged."

Ilenda crossed her arms. "If you don't believe me, come to the pub. Sit down a while, and just relax. You'll feel her, I promise."

Moira sighed and rose from her seat. As she followed Ilenda toward the town square, a thought struck her, and she frowned. "If Raine's spirit really is still in Winhill," she said, "does that mean that she is not at peace?"

"I can't say for sure," Ilenda responded. "But I never feel any sadness or resentment from the presence that visits me. Just … love. Maybe she's not in turmoil. Maybe she's just waiting."

"Waiting? For what?"

"Her family. They're scattered around the world now, as far as we know. Maybe she's just waiting for them to come home. Maybe she's calling them."

Moira snorted. "I'd hope not. I don't want to see that useless husband of hers in this town ever again!"

"That's not up to you. And please, let go of that hatred. You know what happened couldn't have been helped; you know it wasn't his fault. Ellone told us herself that he saved her. Perhaps something happened on his way back. He might even be dead already."

"Good."

" _Moira_."

"All right, I'll let it go. For now. For your sake."

Mireille answered the door in a paint-smeared smock and repeated what Ilenda had told Moira. She pulled out a chair at one of the tables in the pub and asked Moira to sit down. Moira complied, running her fingers across the tabletop and looking at the streaks they left in the dust. Raine would never have let this happen. She also wouldn't let it stay so dark in here. She'd open the shutters, light the candles in bowls on the tables, rearrange the liquor bottles behind the bar …

Moira squinted at the bar, at a lumpy, cream-colored shape lying atop it. As if in reply, the lump unfolded itself into a cat. It stretched and yawned, then jumped down and trotted upstairs. Mireille and Ilenda followed it, Ilenda instructing Moira to just be patient.

After a half an hour, Moira had had enough of this ridiculous endeavor, and began to wonder if the younger women weren't playing a trick on her. If so, how cruel they were. How inconceivably cruel. She huffed and pushed the chair away from the table, but stopped mid-motion when the fragrance hit her.

She looked around. This wasn't right; the flowers on the tables were at least a week old. They shouldn't be giving off such a sweet smell anymore; in fact, they should, by all laws of nature, be shriveled and brown by now.

Nevertheless, Moira breathed in deeply, relishing the scent, feeling something warm take root in her heart and spread through her body. She felt a delicate pressure against her arms and torso, as if someone was hugging her. She smiled, tears welling in her eyes, and whispered Raine's name.

The cash register behind the bar dinged, and Moira heard the drawer pop open. She turned around and saw a hazy glow moving in front of the shelves against the wall. The glow hovered in one spot, and for one brief, beautiful instant, Raine's features came into focus. Before Moira could react, however, the light dissipated and the perfume faded away.

:l:l:l:l:

"Suppose she is waiting," Moira said as she walked back to her shop with Ilenda. "Do you think her family will ever return?"

"It's hard to say. The world is changing so quickly, and people are spreading farther apart than ever. It's not impossible, but I'd say it's becoming far less likely."

"I wonder sometimes about the children. What happened to Ellone? Is she all right? And the baby. The baby …" Moira stopped in her tracks, fragments of memories falling into place like puzzle pieces. "He'd be about the same age. You don't … you don't suppose that was him, from a few months ago?"

"I can't say, I didn't see him."

"He had Raine's eyes. Her eyes … and so many of her features, too." Moira frowned, then grasped Ilenda's arm. "Oh, Ilenda! What if that _was_ him? What if he passed straight through and none of us realized it? What if he never returns?"

Ilenda patted Moira's hand. "He's found this place once," she said. "There's a chance he might come back again."

 _Flowers bloom over and over_. And now, Moira thought, perhaps people do the same.

\- END -


End file.
